Meet Nat Flood of Shamana Circle Studio in Bermuda. Nat is the founder and director of Shamana and she weaves her history of dance, yoga, pilates and birth doula into her teaching. During this podcast hear Nat speak about:
- Dealing with postpartum trauma.
- What does a tongue tie mean?
- The Bermuda Triangle and it’s history.
- The story behind the Shamana Circle studio space.
- How she pivoted her business during the pandemic.
- Pilates practice before and after birth.
- How she turned her understanding of physical rehab work into yoga.
- How she structures her yoga certification program.
Please check Nat out at her website: https://www.shamanacirclestudio.com
And follow her on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/shamanacircle/
Listen to the full episode for free here.
Todd McLaughlin
Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. I’m so excited to have you here and also to introduce you to Nat Flood. Nat is a yoga and pilates and much more than just that teacher that owns a studio in Bermuda on the island of Bermuda out in the Atlantic. She has a studio called Shamana Circle studio, and you can find her on her website, shamanacirclestudio.com, also on Instagram at @shamanacircle, and also on her personal page on Instagram at @natofshamana. Also, I do a free live webinar on YouTube every Thursday at 12pm Eastern. If you join in live, you can ask questions of which case I’m happy to answer during, and it’s recorded. So you can always check it out afterwards as well. Check in the links below for all those details. Again, remember to look for Nat at Shamanacirclestudio.com. All right, let’s get started. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to converse with Nat Flood. Nat, How are you doing today?
Nat Flood
I’m great. I’m so happy to be here and chat to you.
Thank you.
Todd McLaughlin
This has been several months in the making because you are a new mom, or a recently, again new mom. And I know that when I reached out to you and said you can do this, but you just need a little bit of time. And so thank you so much for carving out time. I do know how busy you are and as a parent how hard it is to carve a little bit of time for ourselves. Can you tell me a little bit what it’s like being a new mom again?
Nat Flood
Yeah, my pleasure. I’m so happy to chat. Yeah, it’s amazing over and over and over again. I feel like we learned so much about ourselves over again. You know, we have maybe as a second time mom, for me, like an expectation of how things are gonna go. And of course, none of it went the way that I expected. So it’s just nice to be put in that position with new variables. I love having stuff just thrown at me and dealing with new things. So it’s been great.
Todd McLaughlin
What is an example of something that you tried to premeditate that did not go according to your plan?
Nat Flood
Yeah. So I mean, luckily for me, the second birth was so much more fluid and on the level that I wanted. I was successful, this time in my home water birth, which I’m just so grateful for, took a lot of preparation. It’s just not a done thing here in Bermuda. Not not to say that you can’t do it, but it’s not regulated, and it’s not legislated. So it’s a personal risk that we take on to do it here rather than birthing at the hospital, which is like the major option. But I did long extended breastfeeding with my first son. So we made it to about 15-16 months breastfeeding. And so I was really looking forward to the breastfeeding journey with my second and it was discovered, I kind of knew that there was a problem. He was kind of having a hard time latching on. I knew that it wasn’t right. And then we discovered a massive tongue tie issue for him decided to go ahead with revision and even with revision, he was so guarded and he would not let the dentist in there to do it. So it wasn’t successful. And I ended up pumping exclusively and bottle feeding him. And I mean he’s only nine months so luckily I have a great supply so I was able to pump in store for six months, and he’s still living off my supply. So hopefully I’ll get into a year with my with my breast milk supply. So for me that was just such a new way of thinking or like seeing motherhood you know, you especially as a business owner, it’s it was so time consuming, so body consuming.
Todd McLaughlin
Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine. I mean, obviously, I can’t imagine being a male, but at the same time being a dad and what all goes into it.
Nat Flood
Yeah. Oh my gosh, right. Like I remember just even if we were attempting to get a night off in the process of needing to try to have enough supplies ready to go was was a lot of a lot of extra work. A lot of extra work! Just doing the bottle sterilizing process, oh my goodness, I never did that with my first.
Todd McLaughlin
Can you explain to me what tongue tied is? I can guess what that means. But can you further clarify?
Nat Flood
Yeah, so he has it’s called a sub lingual, sub lingual mucosal tongue tie. I’m probably butchering that, for anyone knows a lot about tongue ties. So it’s quite deep in the back and hard to see. And so what it means is that they can’t get their tongue up to the roof of their mouth to perform that perfect latch. So anytime he would latch on to my breast, it was a couple of sucks and a release and a release, and he could not get a good flow going. So when you have your let down, you know, he had basically trained my body to be two to three ounces of a letdown. And then he would just stop feeding. And he was actually doing something similarly to a bottle. But obviously, with a bottle, it’s a whole lot easier to get the suction, the latch going. So luckily, the tongue tie reversal, what she could do, what the dentist could do, made it a lot easier with a lot less clicking on the bottle. But he was still never able to like develop that positive relationship with breastfeeding. He was very, it was it was traumatizing for him to breastfeed. Yeah. So for us, it was like, You know what? Yes, we could have potentially gone off Island and found another dentist that would have done another revision, but like, you know what? We just whatever’s best for him. And right now, this seems to be his happy place, feeding from a bottle.
Todd McLaughlin
So yeah, so I hear you and you just use the word off island. So on that note, I want to mention that the reason that I was able to find you is I have someone who comes to our studio that she travels to Bermuda. And she just every time she comes back, she’s just raves about how beautiful Bermuda is? That the energy there is just so incredible. And she’s piqued my interest. So in the process of finding you and a yoga studio in Bermuda, I guess I’m just really excited to actually talk to someone who lives in Bermuda. Yeah, can you tell me what Bermuda is like?
Nat Flood
For me? It’s awesome. So we’re a subtropical island that’s about 700 miles off the coast of North Carolina. So we’re like right in line with North Carolina. We are kind of the halfway in between the US and, and really like the continent of Africa, like it’s on the other side, obviously. And then we have Britain above us. So we are at an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. So kind of like how Jamaica was before they went independent, essentially. And it’s beautiful. It’s a 21 square mile island. It’s a mile wide. at its widest point. If you look at a map of Bermuda, it looks like kind of, I’ve heard it described as like a hook. Or like someone said to me recently, I had a teacher, one of my best friends came and taught here for me, back in October, she’s like, it looks to me like a witch’s finger, that’s like curling in telling you to come here, like come here, that sort of thing. So it’s a really cool shape. It’s actually a volcano, we’re living on top of an inactive volcano. And so there is like, you know, it’s just kind of the island and then everything below it is inactive volcano. So we have incredible reef surf. And then we have this insane drop off point. So all of the fishermen here, they go out to the drop off, and that’s where they do their fishing. But when they go out that far, you can’t even see the island anymore. That’s how far out it is.
Todd McLaughlin
Wow. So it’s cool. It sounds amazing. I know everything I’ve heard about it. And the pics I’ve seen have from the surf culture as well just looks like this really incredible.
Nat Flood
It is like super hush hush to a lot of people that move here and don’t know that you can surf here. And there’s like the small contingency of surfer dudes and super surfer girls that go out and they, you know, they’re watching the weather radar, like crazy to make sure that the conditions are right and they go out and they paddle and they go for it. So it’s cool. It’s like it’s starting to become a real thing. Like people are coming here to surf.
Todd McLaughlin
Nice. So yeah, so um another reason to go I’m What drew you or When did you move to Bermuda? Are you born and raised there?
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